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It is the vain endeavor to make ourselves what we are not that has strewn history with so many broken purposes and lives left in the rough.
James Russell Lowell
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James Russell Lowell
Age: 72 †
Born: 1819
Born: February 22
Died: 1891
Died: August 12
Diplomat
Essayist
Journalist
Literary Critic
Poet
Writer
Cambridge
Massachusetts
Broken
Purpose
Lives
History
Strewn
Left
Purposes
Many
Endeavor
Make
Rough
Vain
More quotes by James Russell Lowell
Compromise makes a good umbrella, but a poor roof.
James Russell Lowell
But life is sweet, though all that makes it sweet. Lessen like sound of friends departing feet And death is beautiful as feet of friend. Coming with welcome at our journey's end.
James Russell Lowell
Borrowed garments never keep one warm.
James Russell Lowell
One learns more metaphysics from a single temptation than from all the philosophers.
James Russell Lowell
A ginooine statesman should be on his guard, if he must hev beliefs, not to b'lieve 'em too hard.
James Russell Lowell
Against the windows the storm comes dashing, Through tattered foliage the hail tears crashing, The blue lightning flashes, The rapid hail clashes... The thunder is rumbling And crashing and crumbling.
James Russell Lowell
Then to side with Truth is noble when we share her wretched crust, Ere her cause bring fame and profit, and 't is prosperous to be just Then it is the brave man chooses, while the coward stands aside, Doubting in his abject spirit, till his Lord is crucified.
James Russell Lowell
True freedom is to share All the chains our brothers wear, And, with heart and hand, to be Earnest to make others free!
James Russell Lowell
Old gold has a civilizing virtue which new gold must grow old to be capable of secreting.
James Russell Lowell
Whoever can endure unmixed delight, whoever can tolerate music and painting and poetry all in one, whoever wishes to be rid of thought and to let the busy anvils of the brain be silent for a time, let him read in the Faery Queen.
James Russell Lowell
Endurance is the crowning quality.
James Russell Lowell
Incredulity robs us of many pleasures, and gives us nothing in return.
James Russell Lowell
It is not without reason that fame is awarded only after death. The cloud-dust of notoriety which follows and envelops the men who drive with the wind bewilders contemporary judgment.
James Russell Lowell
Men have their intellectual ancestry, and the likeness of some one of them is forever unexpectedly flashing out in the features of a descendant, it may be after a gap of several centuries. In the parliament of the present every man represents a constituency of the past.
James Russell Lowell
Praise follows truth afar off, and only overtakes her at the grave plausibility clings to her skirts and holds her back till then
James Russell Lowell
I who still pray at morning and at eve Thrice in my life perhaps have truly prayed, Thrice stirred below conscious self Have felt that perfect disenthrallment which is God.
James Russell Lowell
No sincere desire of doing good need make an enemy of a single human being that philanthropy has surely a flaw in it which cannot sympathize with the oppressor equally as with the oppressed.
James Russell Lowell
The devil loves nothing better than the intolerance of reformers.
James Russell Lowell
Children are God's Apostles, sent forth, day by day, to preach of love, and hope, and peace.
James Russell Lowell
And but two ways are offered to our will, Toil with rare triumph, ease with safe disgrace, The problem still for us and all of human race.
James Russell Lowell
